Climate Anxiety

As a young environmental activist, sometimes it is hard to keep from getting burnt out. You try to be a steward, educator, and advocate, but with the seemingly endless plethora of bad news when it comes to the future of our environment, it can be hard. My peers worldwide are worried about the future while also feeling extremely let down by our governments.

Climate change is causing distress, anxiety, anger, and many other negative emotions in children and young people worldwide. The term “eco-anxiety” has recently become popularized. This term is experienced by individuals who feel as if their governments are not doing enough to avoid climate catastrophe. This phenomenon is leading to increasing amounts of mental health problems in today’s youth.

With all this in mind, there are ways to help cope with climate or eco-anxiety. Firstly, it is okay to not be perfect. You have to accept that you can only control what you can control. It is not your sole responsibility to save the world. Even if you are only able to do a little, as a collective, we can still achieve a lot. It is impossible to be perfectly eco-friendly. The best thing you can do is to take small steps to reduce your carbon footprint and to leave the bigger stuff to politicians and to the government who can hopefully enact policy change to enact the larger-scale difference that we need. Secondly, when you become overwhelmed with the negative media surrounding climate change, take a break and change the channel. Take this time to go on a walk or read a book to get your mind off of the negativity. Try to change your mindset to focus on the positives instead of the negatives. An example of a positive to think about is how our generation could be the ones to come up with a solution to save the entire planet. Thirdly, try to make climate action fun and not draining. Grab your friends and host climate marches, sustainable spa days, vegan dinner parties, or sustainable craft parties. Join a community garden that practices permaculture and organic farming. Get outdoors and go on a hike or climb to remember what you are fighting for.

Most importantly, when you are feeling climate anxiety, talk to someone. It can be extremely helpful to express your frustrations to those you care about. It can also be helpful to write to representatives, politicians, and your local government about how you feel about their actions relating to the environment. Use your creative writing skills to create thought and opinion pieces that can be published to the public in your area. This can help gain traction and shine a spotlight on the environmental movement. In these ways, we can fight for climate justice and make our world a more welcoming and inclusive space.

In increasing amounts, people are realizing how social injustice spirals from environmental problems. This can lead to eco-guilt or green guilt. This is common in the Global North, where consumer habits are destroying the planet at increasing rates. This guilt is also related to how race, class, gender, ability, or zip code can compound suffering for others. People also feel guilt about not doing enough, prioritizing more immediate tasks than the environmental movement, or not showing up to a climate protest or meeting. This guilt mainly stems from the privilege experienced by those of us living in the Global North who have easier access to food, mobility, education, safety, and healthcare. If we want to accomplish climate justice, we need to ditch these feelings of eco-guilt, learn how to appreciate the present, and turn those feelings of guilt into hope.

You may also ask yourself, “ How can we get others to care about the environment as much as we do?”. The answer to this is not simple. If we want to address climate change and get our peers to do the same, we must make the fight desirable for ourselves and for the sake of getting others on board. A great way to do this is by studying the Buddhist idea of impermanence of the world and ourselves. We have to try to do the best we can possibly do at the moment. There are a few ways to ditch guild, move beyond hope, and try to laugh and love more to cope with eco-guilt. Some ways to do this are: realize feeling guilty is part of a savior complex and stem from privilege, don’t worry about creating hope, it will come with time, harness the feelings of love, reverence, and pleasure that are generated from a long-term commitment to the cause, examine your deepest desires when it comes to the environment, embrace irony and impermanence, and cherish living in the world that you are trying to save. Don’t forget to create time and space for yourself to wonder, leisure, and play.

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The source used for this article is: Ray, S. J. (2020). Move Beyond Hope, Ditch Guilt, and Laugh More. In A field guide to climate anxiety: How to keep your cool on warming planet (pp. 114–127). essay, University of California Press.